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Bad neighbour leaks a frustrating story: Fiorito

Mimi and Gianni live in the west end of the city. They are a lovely retired couple. He makes a nice glass of wine. She makes a good soppressata. Last fall, they put up eight bushels of tomato sauce. Their garden is ready for planting.

Gianni said, “I put garlic onions, tomatoes, pepperoni, zucchini, some chard.” There is a grape vine over the pergola in the backyard, and as the weather warms you can imagine sitting there, in the cool of the shade, listening to the birdsong and — hang on, what’s that smell?

Gianni (whose name, along with Mimi’s, has been changed for this story), made a face. “The smell of the pee. We can’t stay out.” The smell of the pee was sharply unpleasant. Is it dogs? Are there raccoons?

If only it were that simple.

It seems the next-door neighbour is in the habit of getting up in the middle of the night, opening his back door and taking a leak off the steps. Once a night. Sometimes twice. And sometimes, on Saturdays, early in the morning.

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For the past two years.

Gianni said, of his neighbour, “We were friends at one time to say hello; at Christmas, we give a bottle of wine; in the summer, sometimes some salad from the garden.”

That stopped when the peeing started.

The space between the houses is very narrow and neatly bricked. Mimi said, “Look at the steps. I don’t believe.” The back-door steps of the neighbour were stained white from two years’ worth of urine.

Have they talked to the neighbour? Of course they have. Gianni said, ‘I said to him, ‘You’re not a kid, you’re a man, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ He stopped for a while.”

And then started again.

Mimi said, “I spoke with the wife. She said, ‘It’s not true.’ I said, ‘We have evidence, the smell.’ I said we’d call the police. She said, ‘Do what you want.’ So I called.”

The police sent a community relations officer who talked to the neighbour. The peeing stopped for a while.

And then started again.

Mimi said, “The police said to put a camera. We put two. It cost $615.” The camera footage is grainy and not very useful. Better evidence? The space between the houses smells like a urinal. Gianni and Mimi have grandchildren. Would you let your kids play near pee?

What else have they done besides talking to the neighbour, and calling the cops? Mimi said, “We called 311. They said they don’t have nothing to do with this problem. Then I spoke to the health department. The girl told me she’d do something — but to my daughter, they said they can’t do nothing. Everyone you tell, they say ‘Oh, my God, that’s disgusting.’ But nobody does nothing.”

Gianni made a face. “The neighbour pays the tax. He has the right. I pay the tax. I have no right.” Mimi said, “If you’re on a farm, that’s OK. But we’re here, door by door.”

They wrote to their city councillor last November. He did not reply. I asked Gianni what he would say to the councillor if he saw him, face to face. “I’d tell him, ‘You change the law for the smoke, but not the smell.’ ” Good point.

He also said, “If the people make a noise after 11 p.m., they disturb the peace. But we have this smell all the time.” Good point.

Mimi said, “When they want your vote, they talk nice; when you need their help . . . ” She let it rest.

I didn’t bother talking to the neighbour. I don’t want to pour gasoline — or urine — on a fire. But I did call the councillor the other day. He said the city has been trying to solve the problem; maybe so.

He also said, “There’s not a clear law that’s being broken, or a bylaw that’s not being upheld.” Well, then, pass a bylaw, damn it.

In the meantime?

The councillor said, “We’re trying to get Public Health to go back.” Public Health because, after all, there may be issues of mental health, or alcoholism or, frankly, both those things plus prostate trouble.

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